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The African Grove Theatre was founded by William Henry Brown in 1821. This theatre was one of the first African American theatres. William Brown was a pioneering actor and play writer from the West Indies. He worked as a ship's stewards at times also.
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Important dates and events in African American theatre
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Aldrige was an actor who worked at the African Grove in New York as a young man. He left America because of the lack of opportunity. He became one of the most famous actors of the nineteenth century because of his roles in many Shakespeare plays such as Othello, Shylock, Macbeth, and King Lear. Aldrige was often called "African Roscius” as well.
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The play "A Raisin In The Sun" was written by playwright Lorrain Hansberry. Lorrain was born in 1930 and passed away in 1965. This play is widely known as the play that put African American theatre into the spotlight. The play explores many themes that would become significant in subsequent African American drama.
The play was the first play written by an African American woman to be presented on broadway. The play also won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award. -
The Spirit House was founded by Amari Baraka in 1966. The house was located in Newark and promoted a separatist black society and a theatre devoted to the credo “By us, about us, for us." Among his best-known plays are "Dutchman" (1964) and "Slave ship" (1967).
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The Negro Ensemble Company was founded in 1967 by Douglas Turner Ward and Robert Hooks. Since its development, the NEC has provided several plays that deal with African American themes. Also, this company helped launch several actors' careers such as Phylicia Rashard, Denzel Washington, and Samuel L. Jackson. Although throughout the years the company has struggled financially in 2012 they celebrated their forty-fifth anniversary.
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The New Federal Theater was founded in 1970 by Woodie King Jr. The theatre has operated out of a few different locations on Henry Street in the lower east side of Manhattan. Since 1970 theatre has offered a stage to express the voices of numerous African-America playwrights.
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Crossroads Theatre is located in New Jersey. Founded by Ricardo Khan and L. Kenneth Richardson the theatre was devoted to developing and producing works that built upon the African American theatrical canon. This was also New Jersey's first theatre to devote to such a cause.
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The “century cycle” plays were written by August Wilson. Wilson was born in 1945 and passed away in 2005. His first successful play was “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom”, about African American musicians in the 1920’s in Chicago. Through his “century cycle” of ten plays Wilson documented and examined African American experience throughout each decade in the twentieth century. His project idea stemmed from his belief that you must know your past to understand the present and build a better future.
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"Fences" is a 1985 play by American playwright August Wilson. "Fences" explore the African American experience and examine race relations. The play was first developed at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center's 1983 National Playwrights Conference and premiered at the Yale Repertory Theatre in 1985.
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The Piano Lesson is the fourth play in Wilson's "century cycle." The play was made in 1987. "The Piano Lesson" received the 1990 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Set after the depression the play follows a brother and sister struggling to find an agreement on what to do with their family heirloom which is a piano.
